Nitrate overload (1 Viewer)

[Fishface1313]

Help!! Rookie mistake. I was so excited to watch my fish eat their frozen mysis brine shrim that I believe I over fed and caused my nitrates to go thru the roof. I didn't discover this till my 6 line wrasse started acting odd, and sadly died. We have done 2- 20% water changes in 2 days. Levels don't appear to be going down. We are starting to grow algae in the sump( very little is there to date) . We have stopped over feeding. What more can we do?? So far the remaining fish appear to be ok, but I'm so afraid to have another casualty..any advice is welcome!

 

[FarmerTy]

Help!! Rookie mistake. I was so excited to watch my fish eat their frozen mysis brine shrim that I believe I over fed and caused my nitrates to go thru the roof. I didn't discover this till my 6 line wrasse started acting odd, and sadly died. We have done 2- 20% water changes in 2 days. Levels don't appear to be going down. We are starting to grow algae in the sump( very little is there to date) . We have stopped over feeding. What more can we do?? So far the remaining fish appear to be ok, but I'm so afraid to have another casualty..any advice is welcome!

High nitrates would have to be screaming high to kill fish. What is your nitrate level?

I'm suspecting ammonia poisoning. Do you have any filtration like live rock in the tank? How old is the tank?

 

[Fishface1313]

Ammonia levels are fine. We do have live rock. Tank is about 5 weeks . All was perfect till we started over feeding. .. how can we fix it!!

 

[ReefMaster32787]

Not sure if you do this or not but if not doing this will help in the future. Put the cube/chuck in a fine strainer let that sit in tank water that you pulled from the tank and let the gunk water filter out once thawed leaving clean rinsed shrimp in the strainer . It does help mitigate.


I'd say continue doing water changes if all else is in line. Not to large of water changes though PH, salinity, temp, etc. should all be a gradual change otherwise the problem becomes problems.

Should also post your parameters and tank stats gives others an idea of what's going on with your system.

 

[addictedtoreefing]

I would say at five weeks you prosbably have some traceable amounts of ammonia. Your tank is still very young and is probably still cycling.

 

[Clownfish Chris]

Describe the "weird" actions of the wrasse. Also, give us numbers. It is impossible to diagnose problems with frases like "fine" and "high". It sounds to me also that it is amonia poisoning. It could be something unrelated entirely. Cleaners used around the tank, salinity shock, or something else entirely. What test kits are you using? What equipment do you have? What lighting do you have?

A 5 week old system is going to go through various algae cycles. I doubt it was from overfeeding.

 

[webster1234]

At 5 weeks, you are likely in the final stage of the nitrogen cycle (nitrates are the last ting to spike before the cycle is complete). I would wager you added fish too quickly and the nitrifying bacteria production hasn't had time to catch up. If it were me, I would do water changes but also add some nitrifying bacteria to speed things up. There is a product called SmartStart Complete that I have used on new tanks for years that works wonders.

Everything will be fine, you just got in a hurry and need to give things time to catch up. The bacteria is a good addition though. I'd strongly consider it.